


whiskey tastes like purple

by pacificnewt



Category: Heathers (1988)
Genre: (yeah more than that), F/M, Suicidal Themes, jason and heather are friends jsyk, maybe more than that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 16:57:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17708135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pacificnewt/pseuds/pacificnewt
Summary: Jason Dean didn’t have a death wish. Not exactly.





	whiskey tastes like purple

**Author's Note:**

> i put my soul into this please my crops are dying i ignored them for the entire harvest season to write this bullshit

Jason Dean didn’t have a death wish. Not exactly.

 

Unless boredom was synonymous with having self-destructive tendencies, he wasn’t suicidal. Not exactly.

 

Jason also, however, wasn’t exactly thrilled about the prospects of life— not exactly.

 

He appreciated thrill. He could come love the way his stomach fell three stories on a rollercoaster. He adored the way his hands shook when occupied by a knife. He chased the anticipation that sat next to him in class when he knew one of his infamous pranks or schemes would fall into place mere moments from whenever the excitement sunk in. He longed for the way his chest constricted when he knew he was doing exactly what he was well aware he shouldn’t be doing. Jason especially loved the way his legs twitched when he was in danger.

 

It started in his toes. They fluttered subconsciously as well as they could confined by his boots. At first he wouldn’t notice it; he only noticed when his feet started to jerk. It happened as though somebody had wrapped a rope around his ankles and pulled in any odd direction. His knees would ache in anticipation. He would assume they could have been asleep with the way static fingers extended to his waist, as though somebody touched him altogether too gently and far too hard. It was completely involuntarily on Jason’s behalf— he sat would idly and let his heels start to tap on the ground while his fingers would drum his thighs.

 

Jason’s toes fluttered. His feet jerked. His knees ached, his legs tingled. His fingers did not drum his thighs. They curled tighter around the trigger of the gun in his hand.

 

It hadn’t been the first time Jason Dean found himself alone in the quiet late night-slash-early morning hours kicked back in an old chair in his garage, cigarette dangling from his lips, alcoholic slushie at his feet. He would lay in bed and decide that when he was too bored for sleep and other duty called, he would fetch the gun he kept in his sock drawer, a bullet, and make the hike to the garage. His dad was off doing some sort of business, negligent to supervise somebody like Jason.

 

Jason made a habit out of it. Every few weeks or so he would light his drug, inhale, and blow out through his nose. He would turn on the radio and would tolerate whatever station the previous user had left it on so long as it wasn’t a love song; it made him feel like throwing up his entire intestinal tract. Jason would turn on only one of the lights. He would relax into the chair, allowing it to creak while he closed his eyes. He would remind himself of the frozen drink beside his leg of a slushie— blue raspberry, his favorite flavor— combined with whatever the hardest alcohol he could find in his dad’s cabinet was.

 

Once he decided he was as comfortable as he’d ever be, he looked long and hard at the gun. Sometimes he would speak if the atmosphere felt too dismal or silent. “You and I, my friend,” Jason would say. He then would squeeze the bullet. “And our plus one.” When he concluded the dramatics, he would waste no time opening the chamber of the gun, loading the single bullet inside. He would smile lazily while he spun the cylinder. Jason Dean played Russian roulette.

 

It wasn’t an attempt on his life. Not exactly. He was bored and he found amusement in unconventional activities. It would only make him suicidal the day his luck ran out and ended up against the wall and spilled on the floor along with his chef-d’œuvre, a mural of red and pink and brain matter with none other that was quite like it. That was all there was to it, he would explain, if anyone ever asked about it. Nobody ever did.

 

“What the _fuck_  are you doing?”

 

Bang.

 

Jason spun around in the rickety chair and slowly removed his cigarette.“You wasted my bullet.”

 

Heather Chandler jumped at the shot. Her head throbbed. “JD?”

 

“What?”

 

Heather rubbed her eyes and did a double-take. She had to be hallucinating, she decided, because there was no way she had entered the Dean garage to see the back of the family’s son with a gun raised to his temple, fingers curled tight around the trigger. She felt the color drain from her face when she had startled him seconds before he shot the weapon, hand twisting in surprise, firing a small hole into the garage door instead of Jason’s head.

 

Jason noticed he kicked when he shot the gun and he spilled his drink. He took advantage of Heather’s silence and he said, “My slushie, too.”

 

Heather leaned up against the wall. She inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. For reasons unbeknownst to her, her heart was pounding. What would she care if she walked in to see Jason Dean dead on the floor? She wouldn’t. She didn’t think so, at least. She didn’t want to think so.

 

When Heather still said nothing, Jason frowned and stood to his full height. He tossed the firearm on the chair. “What are you doing here, anyways? It’s, what, two in the morning?” Heather was almost angry at his nonchalantness.

 

“Nightmare,” she choked. “I had a nightmare. I thought you’d be willing to talk, you’re always up at this hour.” Heather looked up to meet Jason, internally trying to deny the tears that pulled at the corners of her eyes. “JD, what are you doing?”

 

Jason gestured to his setup with a small smile. “Everyone has their idea of fun. I have no better way to spend a Saturday night.”

 

Her tears started to fall. No hiding that now. “So you’re gonna shoot yourself for fun? You’re gonna kill yourself just for _fun_?”

 

Somebody had finally asked. Jason sat her down and he explained what he did and why. He told her he was bored and he fell in love with walking the tightrope of life above the black hole called death. Heather felt her blood heat while she listened to Jason prattle on excitedly about whatever godforsaken reason possessed him to think it was all a game. Jason finished his spiel and now looked to Heather, who only started to cry more.

 

“Why are you crying?” Jason tilted his head. He frowned, for her tears were the rain on his parade.

 

“What is wrong with you?” Heather’s voice raised with the pressure in her body. She felt her heart on fire and she couldn’t place why. “What the hell screw is loose in your head to make you think this is _fun_?”

 

Jason scoffed. “I find it fun because it makes me aware of life. To feel such a thing as sweet as the blood coursing hard through your veins is a gift considering how stationary life is at all over times. You feel ‘normal’. You don’t get to feel a rush like that everyday. Sometimes it takes a dance with death to look life in the eyes.”

 

“You’re really that selfish? You care too much about your own entertainment to realize who that would hurt?”

 

“Who would it be h—“

 

“ _Me_!” Heather was screaming. “Me, JD, that would hurt me! You don’t even realize that?” She stood and Jason pressed his back to the hole he made in the garage door.

 

“You hate my guts, Heather, what are you talking about?”

 

“You idiot!” She was choking on her sobs. It was making Jason nervous. “I wouldn’t sneak out as often as I do to see you if I didn’t give a shit!” Jason opened his mouth, but Heather continued. “Do I really not mean anything to you? Nothing? Do you not care about watching horror movies with me in my basement when my parents are gone? Do you not care about doing our homework together? Do you not care about nitpicking nerds in the cafeteria at lunch? Do you not care about me or a single goddamn thing I say to you?”

 

Jason’s gaze had long fallen to the floor. He stared blankly, only half-registering the words Heather spoke. He was too angry to pay full attention. Of course he cared. How could she not see that?

 

When Heather had finished yelling at him, she expected a response. Her standards were too high. She felt more deeply offended than she had in her entire life. “Jesus Christ, fine, _fine_! If your skull is really that fucking thick just shoot yourself and say, ‘I told you so’! See if I care!” She turned and took a step away.

 

Jason grabbed her red sleeve. Heather almost started to scream again until he guided her to his body, dipped his head, and kissed her. She stopped repressing her sobs. Heather found herself with fistfuls of Jason’s blue shirt, crying quietly against his mouth. Jason was gentle with her. He combed his fingers through her hair and kept their mouths pressed to one another as though he would suffocate without it. His hands rested on her hips.

 

When Jason pulled away, he put a hand on either side of Heather’s face. He rubbed his thumbs along the undersides of her eyes to wipe her tears away. Heather sniffled and buried her face in his chest. He smelled like smoke and old cologne. “Of course I care, you fucking dumbass,” Jason said.

 

It wasn’t much, but it constituted a smile from Heather. She wiped the rest of her face on his shirt and quickly decided it wasn’t worth crying over anymore. Jason Dean was Jason Dean, not even Heather Chandler could change that. She knew there was no way he didn’t care. If he didn’t, he’d probably already have let himself get unlucky. If Jason trusted himself enough to fire a gun at his head regularly, Heather would have to trust him too.

 

“If I ever find out you keep doing this, I’ll be the thing that kills you,” she muttered against him.

 

Jason laughed and slid his hand down her back. “Roger that, babe.”

 

Heather felt a pang in her heart. Sometimes she hated Jason. He made her feel all kinds of things and then pulled away right as they were about to collide. Sometimes she loved him, too. He was the only person she had ever met she could tolerate in the ways she tolerated Jason. She was the Sun and he the Moon; they coexisted wonderfully among a sea of stars all too similar to stand out like they did. They were entirely dependent on one another. Everybody is aware of the unshakable bond between the Sun— bright, fiery, passionate, heated, gorgeous, and the Moon— dark, mysterious, shrouded in uncertainty, yet beautiful all the same. Therein lies the tragedy of two perfect beings so connected yet too far to touch.

 

Jason rested his chin atop Heather’s head and wrapped his arms around her smaller frame. Heather exhaled deeply and embraced him back. Neither one payed any mind to Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” playing quietly from the radio. It was ironic, all things considered.

 

“Can we watch something?” Heather asked after a moment.

 

“What do you have in mind?”

 

“We could watch Evil Dead for the umpteenth time,” she said through a smile.

 

“Haven’t you had enough of a scare for tonight?” Jason smiled and kissed her head. “Sure, why not?”

 

“That movie isn’t scary, asshole.” Jason lifted Heather off the ground in a bridal-style fashion and kissed her again. This time was even sweeter, longer, and the sort of kiss that makes two heartbeats align.

 

Jason left the gun and chair where they had been sitting and left the radio playing. He started to take paces toward the door back into his house. He kicked aside the plastic cup on the ground and stepped through the icy blue remnants that had spilled from it.

 

“You taste like whiskey,” Heather said.

 

Jason laughed softly and kissed her again.


End file.
